Apparatus to preserve and exhibit photographs



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

GIIARLES ROBINSON, OF SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS.

APPARATUS To PRESI-:PNE AND EXHIBIT PHOTOGRAPHS;

Specification forming part o f Letters Patent No. 7,222, dated April 11, 1.665.

To all whom it rita/y concern.-

Be it known that I, CHARLES ROBINSON, of Springfield, in the county of Hampden and State of Massachusetts, have invented a new and Improved Method of Preserving and Exhibiting Photographic Pictures; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full and exact description thereof, reference being had tothe accompanying drawings, making part of this specification.

Figure lA is a front elevation of the apparatus by which my improved method is ap.

plied; Fig. 2, a longitudinal vertical section thereof; Fig. 3, a plan of' the same; Fig. 4, a view of a part detached.

Like letters designate corresponding parts in all of the figures.

I employ an oblong box or case, A, of suitable dimensions, having a cover or lid, a, which is generally to be fastened by a lock, m, so that the photographs, once mounted inside, may be secure from handling, taking away, or disarranging; and thus, as by the arrangement they are not required to be handled at all, they are preserved as well as exhibited. The box may be plain, or have any degree or kind of ornamentation desired. Within the box are located two cylinders, B (l, as large in diameter as the box will contain, as long as required for the size of photographs to be shown, and as near to each other as may be on parallel shafts b c, all substantially as represented in the drawings. Each shaft b or c extends through a clamp, d, Fig. 4, which is secured to the box by a screw, f, or its equivalent, and is split or divided at one end, so as to admit a lining-plate, g, therein (and around the shaft b) and allow space for the sides to be tightened together. Screws e e are inserted vertically across the divisions,

`by screwing down which any degree of pressure canv be` applied to the shaft. The object of this is to hold the cylinder B C from turning too readily, so that the band or strip on which the pictures are mounted; may be kept straight between the two cylinders. Around these` cylinders said band or strip G, of linen cloth or other suitable material is wound, being of sufficient length `to hold, side by side, at regular distances, as mariy photographs as may be desired-say two hundred or ve hundred. The strip is attached at its ends, respectively, to the cylinders, so that it can be wound upon either, or wound oft onto the other, as often as desired by simply turningknobs D E, respectively, on the cylinder-shafts, `first one and then the other, as directed, at n and p, Fig. 1, above the knobs. On the band or strip G are pasted or otherwise secured, side by side, border cards or holders hh, being attached to the strip of cloth only at their adjacent edges, so that the photographs may be slid under them and exhibited as in photographic albums. Then, directly above these pictures is an opening in the cover of the box, covered with' glass fi, and under the glass is a border or frame card having apertures 1I H, of proper size and shape, so situated as to be over any two of the `pictures :mountedlon the strip beneath as they are brought along in turning the knob D E; or, instead of two apertures, H H,on1y'one"may be used, if preferred, so as to exhibit only one picture at once.

The opera-tion of the instrument is obvious. On turning either cylinder B or G by its knob D or E, in the proper direction, the pictures (which are all Wound around one or both of the cylinders) are drawn upon that cylinder, and are exhibited as they pass from one cylinder to the other in the tangent plane beneath the openings H H. The photographs are a little .curved from being bent around the peripheries of the cylinders, but not sufdciently to militate against a proper exhibition 1 of the same to the view. When they are all wound upon one cylinder, the other cylinder is turned by its knob and the pictures wound back upon that, and viewed also in their passage. .lhis may be repeated as many times as desired.

The advantages of this method are the ready convenience with` which the pictures are exhibited the perfect preservation of they photographs from soiling or loss, the very large number which may be Inounted together, and the extreme cheapness of the apparatus, the principal expense of it being in the box itself, and that depending on the` richness and amount of ornamentation given to it.

What I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

I. The combination of a continuous band,l G,

provided with means for mounting the photographs thereon, two cylinders, B C, of sueient diameter not to injuriously aieet the appearance of the photographs by being bent around them, and an inelosing box or ease, A, provided with an aperture or apertures, H H, through which the photographs are eX- hibited, substantially as and for the purposes herein specified.

2. The brake-clamp, (shown in Fig. 4,) for keeping the tangent parti n ofthe eonueetin g band, or strip straight, as herein set forth.

The above speeieation of my improved method of preserving and exhibiting photographie pictures signed by me this 30th day of May, 1861.

CHARLES ROBINSON.

Witnesses:

' J. D. STRATTON,

' 'JAB/IESE. MoINTmE. 

